16 LET YOUR. MIND ALONE! v. ANODYNES FOR. ANXIE TIES I SHOULD like to begin our lec- ture this week with a quotation from Mr. David Seabury's "How to Worry Successfully." When things get really tough for me, I always turn to this selection and read it through twice, the second time backward, and while it doesn't make me feel fine, ex- actly, it makes me feel better. Here it IS: "If you are indulging in gloomy fears which follow each other round and round until the brain reels, there are two possible procedures: "First, quit circling. It doesn't mat- ter where you cease whirling, as long as you stop. "Second, if you cannot find a con- stant, think of something as different from the fact at which you stopped as you possibly can. Imagine what would happen if you mixed that contrast into your situation. If nothing results to clarify your worry, try another set of opposites and continue the process until you do get a helpful answer. If you , ' , . .í. I': :. ' , ".' " ':</" ;,ß )L. ;f':!: persist, you will soon solve any ordinary problem. " I first read this remarkable piece of advice two months ago and I vaguely realized then that in it, somewhere, was a strangely familiar formula, not, to be sure, a formula that would ever help me solve anything, but a formula for something or other. And one day I hit on it. It is the formula by which the Marx brothers construct their dia- logue. Let us take their justly famous scene in which Groucho says to Chico, "It is my belief that the missing picture is hidden in the house next door:" Here Groucho has ceased whirling, or cir- cling, and has stopped at a fact, that fact being his belief that the picture is hidden in the house next door. Now Chico, in accordance with Mr. Sea- bury's instructions, thinks of something as different from that fact as he pos- sibly can. He says, "There isn't any house next door." Thereupon Groucho "mixes that contrast into his situation." He says, "Then we'll build one!" Mr. (CM T hat would you do if Herbert Mars/tall walked into this roon1 rig-ht nO'[R)?" JANUARY 30, 1937 Seabury says, "If you persist you will soon solve any ordinary problem." He underestimates the power of his formu- la. If you persist, you will soon solve anything at all, no matter how impos- sible. That way, of course, lies mad- ness, but I would be the last person to say that madness is not a solution. It will come as no surprise to you, I am sure, that throughout the Men- tality Books with which we have been concerned there runs a thin, wavy line of this particular kind of Ivr Fxist phil- osophy. Mr. Seabury's works .are heav- ily threaded with it, but before we con- tinue with him, let us turn for a moment to dear Dorothea Brande, whose "Wake Up and Live!" has changed the lives of God knows how many people by this time. Writes Mrs. Brande, "One of the most famous men in America constantly sends him- self postcards, and occasionally notes. He explained the card sending as be- ing his way of relieving his memory of unnecessary details. In his pocket he car- ries a few postals addressed to his office. I was with him one threatening day when he looked out the restaurant win- dow, drew a card from his pocket, and wrote on it. Then he threw it across the table to me with a grin. It was addressed to himself at his office, and said, 'Put your raincoat with your hat.' At the office he had other cards ad- dressed to himself at home." We have here a muzziness of thought so enormous that it is difficult to analyze. First of all, however, the ordinary mind is struck by the obvious fact that the famous American in ques- tion has, to relieve his memory of un- necessary details, burdened that mem- ory with the details of having to have postcards at his office, in his pock- ets, and at his home all the time. If it isn't harder to remember always to take self-addressed postcards with you wherever you go than to remember to put your raincoat with your hat when the weather looks threatening, then you and I will eat the postcards or even the raincoat. Threatening weather itself is a natural sharp reminder of one's raincoat, but what is there to remind one that one is running out of post- cards? And supposing the famous man does run out of postcards, what does he do-hunt up a Western Union and send himself a telegram ? You can see how monstrously wrapped up in the coils of his own little memory system this notable American must soon find himself. There is something about this system of buying postcards, address-